To get the feel of the era right for Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977), among other things, the art director used authentic antique Kashmiri shawls from private collection. The art director was Bansi Chandragupta. If Satyajit Ray is considered one of the greatest Indian film directors of all time, his regular art director Bansi Chandragupta can be considered one of the best and pioneering art directors in India.
Bansi Chandragupta was born in 1924 in Sailkot. When still a child his family moved to Srinagar where he did his basic education. In 1942, in midst of ‘Quit-India’ movement he moved to Bengal and was introduced to Satyajit Ray as a painter. Along with Ray he was one of the founders of Calcutta film society. In years to come, Bansi Chandragupta went on to be Ray’s ‘Kashmiri’ friend who helped him in creation of almost all his cinematic masterpieces.
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Portrait of a Kashmiri Girl
Bansi Chandragupta
Early 20th century
Kardast havaye Hind dilgir mara ay bakht rasan ba bagh-e Kashmir ma ra gashtam zi hararat-e gharibi bitab az subh-e vatan bidih tabashir mara
The scorching winds of India distress me.
O Fate, take me to the garden of Kashmir.
The heat of exile robs me of peace.
Grant me a glimpse of my land’s milky dawn.
Heer Ranjha (aka Beauty of Punjab aka Hoore Punjab, 1929).
Starring Sulochana (aka Ruby Meyers) and D.Billimoria.
Kikali kalir di!
Hold hands and whirl around
My brother’s turban is brown
His wife’s veil is red
Which she just won’t shed
Heer comes from Kashmir
Ranjha is of Hindustan
~ A translation of Punjabi folk song ‘Kikali kalir di‘ by Nirupama Dutt (from ‘The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense’ (2007)) from version given in ‘Punjabi lok Git’, compiled by Devendra Satyarthi and Mohinder Singh Randhaw in around 1956 and published in 1961. Kikali would be Punjabi equivalent of Kashmiri Hikat.
The usage of Kashmir and Hindustan in the lines, rather than alluding to origins of the fabled lovers, is meant as a tease, to show the incomparability of two. A popular device used in wedding songs to show the unbalanced scale between bride (usually on the higher end) and groom (at the lower end).
I came across it while looking for Devendra Satyarthi’s travelogue on Kashmir from 1930s (which I did manage to track down! And will make available soon. Available Here). Legendary Punjabi folklorist Devendra Satyarthi was the first to introduce Mehjoor’s work to India.
Now, re-watch Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar (2011), which was a re-take on story of Heer-Ranjha, with a Kashmiri Heer and an Indian Ranjha.
Mughals are known to have built most magnificent gardens in Kashmir but the garden of their most magnificent building was designed by a Kashmiri. A man named Ram Lal Kashmiri was the chief garden designer of Taj Mahal.
Har ek admi apne mulk ko Kashmir samajhta hai
Every man thinks his own country Kashmir.
~ A line from a translation exercise in ‘Domestic Hindustani, a simplified and abridged grammar of simple colloquial Hindustani’ by D C Phillott; William George Grey (1907).
[…] the system of the colonial rule that indulges in inhuman exploitation by imposing an artificial peace in the society:
Ghoom rahi sabhyata danavi, shanti-shanti karti bhootal mein, Poochhey koi, bhigo rahi wah kyon apne vishdant garal mein. Tank rahi hon sooyi charm, par shant rahen ham, tanik na dolen; Yehi shanti, gardan katthi hon, par hum apni jeebh na kholen. Bolein kuchh mat kshudhit, rotiyan shwan chin khayen yadi kar se, Yehi shanti, jab we aayen, hum nikal jaayen chupke nij ghar se Choos rahe hon danuj rakth, par hon mat dalit prabudh kumari! Ho na kahin pratikaar paap ka, shanti ya ki yeh yudhh kumari.
(The monster civilization moves, urging peace on the earth,
Let’s ask, why does it soak its teeth in poison.
You sew up our skin, but desire peace and no resistance from us
This is the peace, where necks are severed, but expects us to be tongue-tied.
The hungry should remain voiceless, even if the falcon snatches food from their hands
This is the peace, where when they invade, we should quietly leave our homes
The monsters may be sucking their blood, but don’t want the oppressed to be conscious
They do not want injustice to be resisted; for you, O maiden, either this peace or war.)
~ from ‘Ramdhari Singh Dinkar: Makers of Indian Literature’, Sahitya Akademi.
“Inside the sacred cave of Amernath
In this rocky recess the devout pilgrims strip off their cloths and throw themselves naked on the blocks of ice which here form lingams, phallic emblems symbolic of Siva, the re-creator. The ice mound to the right is covered with the clothing of the pilgrims.”
From National Geographic Magazine, Vol 40, 1921.
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People have been trashing the place historically for a long time. Trashing is like some kind of tantric ritual there. So, people be allowed to do so in future too. Case dismissed.
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“I was in Kashmir. One evening, I sat by the River Jhelum. There was stillness all around. I felt I was sitting besides the Padma. Of course, when I lived on the Padma I was a young man, now I am old. Yet that difference seemed to have been wiped out by some link transcending time. A flock of geese flew over my head across Jhelum…I seemed to hear some ineffable call, and be led by its impulse to some far journey.” (Kshitimohan Sen, Balaka-Kabya-Parikrama,p.55)
Balaka
A Flight of Swans
The curving stream of the Jhelum glimmering in the glow of evening
merged into the dark like a bend sword in a sheath;
at the day’s ebb the night-tide
appeared with the star-flowers floating on the dark waters;
at the foot of the dark mountains were rows of deodar trees;
as if Creation, unable to speak clearly, sought to reveal its message in dream,
only heaps of inarticulate sounds rose groaning in the dark.
Suddenly I heard at that moment in the evening sky
the flash of sound rushing instantly far and farther in the plain of emptiness.
O flying swans
Storm-intoxicated are your wings
the loud laughter of immeasurable joy awakened wonder
which continued to dance in the sky.
The sounds of those wings,
the sounding heavenly nymphs
vanished after breaking the quiet of meditation.
The mountains, engulfed in darkness, shuddered,
shuddered the forest of deodar.
As if the message of those wings
brought for a moment the urge for movement
in the heart of ecstatic stillness.
The mountains desired to be roaming clouds of April,
the rows of trees spreading their wings,
desirous of severing the fetters of earth, were lost in a trice,
while in search of the end of the sky following that trail of sound.
The dream of this evening is shattered.
The waves of agony rise.
There is longing for the far,
O roaming wings.
In the heart of the universe is heard the agonized cry,
‘Not here, not here, but somewhere else!’
O flying swans,
tonight you have opened to me the covers of stillness.
under this quiet I hear
in air, water and land
those sounds of the undaunted and restless wings.
The heaps of grass are flapping their wings in the sky of the earth;
in some dark obscure corner of the earth
millions of sprouting swans of seeds are flapping their wings.
Today I see these mountains, these forests fly freely
from one island to another, from the unknown to the more unknown.
In the beating of the wings of the stars
the darkness starts crying for the light.
I hear the myriad voices of men flying in different groups to
unknown regions
from the shadowy past to the hazy and distant new age.
In my heart I heard the flight of the nest-free bird with innumerable
others
through day and night, through light and darkness
from one unknown shore to some other unknown shore.
The wings of the empty universe resound with this song –
‘Not here, but somewhere, somewhere, somewhere beyond!’
Translated by Bhupendranath Seal (Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology, Volume 3)
“It is becoming easier for me to feel that it is I who bloom in flowers, spread in the grass, flow in the water, scintillate in the stars, live in the lives of men of all ages.
When I sit in the morning outside on the deck of my boat,before the majestic purple of the mountains, crowned with the morning light. I know that I am eternal, that I am anado-rupam, My true form is not that of flesh or blood, but of joy. In the world where we habitually live, the self is so predominant that everything in it is of our own making and we starve because we have to feed ourselves. To know truth is to become true, there is no other way. When we live in the self, it is not possible for us to realize truth.
[…] My coming to Kashmir has helped me to know clearly what I want. It is likely that it will become obscured again when I go back to my usual routine; but these occasional detachments of life from the usual round of customary thoughts and occupations lead to the final freedom – the Santan, Sivam, Advaitam.”
~ extracts from a letter written by Rabindranath Tagore in Srinagar, Kashmir on October 12th, 1915. [A Miscellany by Rabindranath Tagore]
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jaane kaisi sardi aakay baith gayi thi jam gayi thi uskay seenay mai Ghazal ki Kangdi jala kay pehen leta tha Sardi say dhitharnay lagta tha kabhi chadri chadri dhoop ood leta tha Kal suna hai barf gir rahi thi jab pahado par khidki khol kar woh aag taapnay chala gaya chita ki aag par
